Vita, Sanguis et Anima
by GeekIsShowing
Summary: Tired and bitter, Harry Potter struggles trough summer until something, or someone, makes him decide to grow stronger. Independent!Harry with vampires, werewolves, olde magick and politics in tow. Slash HPOC HIATUS
1. Prologue

**Authors Note:** This is my baby, and it will probably take a long time for me to finish since I'm a perfectionist when it comes to this story. This is the third time I'm updating this prologue, Harry decided he didn't want to be gothic anymore.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter, but I do own the OC-characters and some new ideas that I'll put poor Harry through.

**Warnings:** Slash/Yaoi, vampirism, smoking, abuse, bloodplay (sounds worse than it will be) and some other things, will update warnings.

_Vita, Sanguis et Anima__ - A Harry Potter Fanficton_  
_by Vaettr_

That night, the sky was as clear as a mountain stream, filtered through rock and free of sediment. Even though there were no clouds, the stars seemed dim in the dark of night, barely visible. It was as if something had dulled their shining bodies from sight. Even though it was a summer night in the middle of July, the air was freezing cold. When your breath formed small white clouds, you could almost start to believe that you were in Antarctica instead of Surrey, on the outskirts of London. The silent street was lit up by the harsh white-blue light of the streetlamps, giving it an eerie and almost depressing gloom. This was not a happy neighbourhood.

All of the houses looked exactly the same, a stereotype British neighbourhood you could call it. Identical traditional-looking house with four bedrooms, identical pitched roofs with identical grey tiles. Neat gardens with green, groomed grass; pink and yellow flowerbeds and perfectly trimmed hedges. In this small collection of suburban streets it was all about the perfect outside. On the low wall that separated number 4, Privet Drive from the pavement, sat a skinny boy, about five and a half feet tall. His raven black hair almost reached his shoulders in a disarray of waves. He was wearing over-sized clothes and a pair of what were once white trainers, now grey from years of dirt.

As the cold wind blew, strands of hair blew away from his face and revealed a pair of stunningly green eyes, almost the colour of absinthe. Above his eyes was a pair of sculpted black eyebrows, surprisingly rather feminine in appearance. A jagged scar was also revealed during the gust of wind, travelling down the slope of the boy's forehead like a muddy country road, or as other people would tell him, like a lightning bolt. This scar revealed him to be Harry Potter, home for the summer break between his sixth and seventh year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

An icy breeze blew by him and he shuddered. He glared up at the dark windows of the house he was sitting outside of. He had yet again been locked out by his relatives. His aunt, the horse-faced Petunia Dursley, had sent him out on a shopping trip just half an hour before all the stores closed, knowing he couldn't possibly make it. As punishment for his failure in doing the chore, he had been locked out. So now here he was sitting on a cold stone wall in the middle of a chilly night, with just a t-shirt on.

Harry glared up at the house, before snorting in disgust at the thought of relatives. Selfish pigs, that's what they all were. Well, except for Petunia, she was a selfish horse. He jumped off the low wall and sneaked across the yard. Wouldn't do to let the neighbours see him now would it? He went to the little wooden lean-to shed behind the garage, where he had hidden some belongings of his that he couldn't store in the house. He went inside and locked the door behind him, sinking down to the floor beside the lawnmower.

His hands started to automatically search for his hidden treasures behind some loose bricks in the garage wall, which the shed was leaning on. Harry's eyes glowed when his fingers found what he was looking for. A packet of cigarettes. This wasn't normally his thing, but he really needed something relaxing so that he could take his mind of everything happening to him. He lit one with a squat little lighter with a pinup-girl displayed on the yellow plastic. He had taken it from Dudley earlier during that week. His fat cousin still believed that it was his friend Polkiss who had stolen it.

"Stupid, fat tub of lard…" Harry muttered to himself, sneering at the thought of his over-sized cousin before taking a drag of the cigarette. The cousin who took every open chance to make his life as miserable as possible and worse.

He sighed, he really hated it here. But according to Dumbledore, he would have to stay here all summer. Never mind all the bruises he would be sporting when he came back and him losing about a stone in weight. Which no one ever noticed, of course.

"I'm getting too bloody good at hiding this shit," He mumbled tiredly, blearily staring at the smoke curling up from the red-hot end of the cigarette. It was almost finished.

He held up the lighter in the pale moonlight that came down on him from the tiny window. The pinup-girl had a red and white striped bikini, showing off more curves than Harry was sure was physically possible. Harry stared unimpressed at the little picture and sighed, before dropping the lighter into his trouser pocket. Why couldn't he ever be normal?

Not only was he supposed to be some kind of saviour of the wizarding world, he also had to play a role that was almost the opposite of his true self, just to please others. He had to hide his bitter attitude and bad habits. Those were too bad-boy associated for the poster boy of the Light side to have. And just as he had to hide all these aspects of his true self, he couldn't reveal the other sides of himself which couldn't possibly be associated with the Boy-Who-Lived persona. Being a Parselmouth was out of the question, a Slytherin trait if nothing else. He couldn't be angry either, as a true hero never loses his temper.

He couldn't even reveal that he was gay to anyone, for fear of what they would do to him if he did. He didn't even dare tell the Weasleys or Hermione, as they all thought that he would get together with Ginny in the end. Everyone knew that. Except for Harry and Ginny themselves, as Harry was gay and Ginny was dating Neville Longbottom, who really was only a cover to hide her forbidden relationship with the Slytherin Blaise Zabini, which Neville was nevertheless aware of.

The shed went dark, breaking his depressing train of thought. A shadow had flickered by the window, for only a second, hiding the moonlight from sight. Harry tensed, slowly reaching for his wand. The light in the room flickered again, making him grasp the wand tightly, and he almost had it out of its holster before he heard a soft hoot sounding from the window.

He relaxed, sliding the wand back into the leather holster strapped around his right calf. It was Hedwig, his owl. She had been out hunting when had went to buy the supplies for his aunt. She was locked out of the house just as he was, making him relieved. Who knew what the Dursleys would have done to her if he hadn't been there.

He rose slowly, almost not having to crouch at all, damn his height, to let her in through the door as the window was far too small. She flew inside, landing on the handle of the red, rusty lawnmower. She hooted contentedly, before burrowing her face beneath one of her wings, showing demonstratively that she was going to sleep. While watching her taking delicate little sleeping breaths, Harry decided that he might as well join her in the land of dreams, as there was no point to sit up all night brooding.

His head softly hit the brick wall behind as he relaxed into sleep, not noticing a second shadow flickering in the shed and the slight creaking of the door he had forgotten to lock after letting Hedwig in. The last thing he heard was what he thought was the imagined the softly whispered words:

"_Vai a dormire il mio amore.__ Guarderò sopra voi._"*

**End of Prologue**

**Translation:**  
*Go to sleep, my love. I will watch over you. (This, I hope, is Italian)

**Update: 02-05-12 **So this is another update of the prologue, the third I think, Chapter 1 will be uploaded within a week. Thank you for your patience!


	2. Chapter 1

**Authors Note: **This is my baby, and it will probably take a long time for me to finish since I'm a perfectionist when it comes to this story. Be patient!  
**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter, but I do own the OC-characters and some new ideas that I'll put poor Harry through. It all belongs to the lady J.K. Rowling!  
**Warnings: **Slash/Yaoi, vampirism, smoking, abuse, blood play (sounds worse than it will be) and some other things, will update warnings.

* * *

**Chapter 1 – Of Dried Herbs and Purple Leather Coats**

He woke up disoriented, his dark hair standing on end and his deep emerald eyes half-closed, mind still in dreamland. Harry slowly stretched and his body arched against a soft mattress. It wasn't until he'd slowly sat up and the sheet had fallen off of his half-naked body that he realised something was off. He was in a bed, _without a shirt_. Harry was suddenly wide awake, his previously sleepy eyes now sharp, surveying his surroundings.

He was in his room, inside of Privet Drive. How the _hell _had he gotten there? He glanced hastily at the alarm clock on the night table next to his bed. 7:30 am. Had he been sleepwalking? As far as he remembered he had fallen asleep in the garden shed, with Hedwig perching on the lawnmower next to him. He had been locked out of the house, so how had he gotten in?

He slipped out of bed and made his way over to the door and was just about to pull the handle when a quiet hoot made him turn around. Hedwig was sitting on the windowsill, and the window in question was open. Harry felt a chill go down his spine and he shuddered, although he wasn't sure if it was from dread or the slight breeze that wafted from outside.

'What did I do, climb through the fucking window?' he thought in disbelief.

As he stood still, contemplating what on earth had happened the night before, Hedwig wasn't as motionless. She flew across the room to the desk, where her cage stood. She climbed in, which made Harry take a second look. What he saw made his eyes widen. The cage was stocked with dead mice and the water bowl was filled to the brim. Hedwig was drinking said water with a pleased hoot and gave Harry a look that seemed to say, _'Why so worried? Look... Food!'_

He checked his back pocket for his wand, only to see it lying on his rickety little table next to the bed. He was just about to snatch it up when he noticed a small bouquet of dried flowers beside it. He gently picked it up and smelled it.

'As if this day could get any weirder.' Harry thought as he studied the delicate little flowers.

He recognized the leaves of mugwort from potions, and the other plant he knew was chamomile from all of Petunia's endless tea parties he'd been forced to wait upon.

As soon as he thought of his servitude for Aunt Petunia there was a sharp knock on his door and a muffled, screeching voice could be heard;

"Are you in there boy? If you climbed in through the window last night and destroyed my flowerbeds, there will be serious trouble for you!"

He could see the handle being turned and the door swung open to reveal his highly irate aunt. She actually blanched at the sight of him and narrowed her dark eyes.

"How did you get in here?" she asked suspiciously, walking toward the window with firm steps.

Harry didn't know what to say, should he tell her the truth or not. As he himself didn't know what the truth was, he decided on a white lie.

"I... I think I sleepwalked." He mumbled, making his aunt turn around to stare at him.

"_Sleepwalked?" _she mocked him. "Your screaming at all hours of the night isn't enough then? You have to walk around my house in your sleep as well?"

Petunia swept the pale yellow curtains from the windows and opened them, leaning forward over the wooden sill to get a good view of the flowerbeds beneath. Harry suddenly got an itching urge to push her out of the window, but he regrettably repressed it. It would have been fun to see his usually prim and proper aunt sitting in her precious flowerbeds, with mud and fertilizer sticking to her. The movement of the real Petunia suddenly straightening up ended his little daydream though. She turned around and Harry did his best to look confused and only slightly awake, neither look very hard to pull off.

"Well, if you're done with your so called sleepwalking, you might as well come down and start making breakfast, my poor Dudders needs a big, healthy goodbye meal."

"Is Dudley going somewhere?" Harry asked, his aunt answering him with a sniff.

"Smeltings won't accept him back next term if he doesn't go to summer school to get his grades up. Ridiculous, I say. It's not Dudders' fault his teachers are abysmal at their jobs!"

He just stared at her, and after a while, it seemed like the air went out of her. Petunia sighed and looked up at him, she seemed so tired suddenly. For a short moment it looked like she was about to say something to him, but then she just shook her head and went past him towards the door.

Her hand went to lean on the doorframe, and she stopped. She turned around and actually _sniffed _his room, "Why does it smell like chamomile in here?" she asked, sounding more puzzled than accusatory. Harry took the safe way and just shrugged and his aunt left, closing the door with a bang.

Only when he heard her going down the stairs could he relax, sinking down on his bed, staring unseeingly in front of him.

* * *

After cooking breakfast for his relatives and doing his chores, enduring the usual slew of insults and mockeries at his expense, it wasn't until the late afternoon that Harry was finally able to walk outside. He slowly wandered along the garden path, lined with Petunia's favourite flowers that he himself had lovingly watered and grown. Sleepy chrysanthemums, peonies and primroses swayed slowly in the breeze, like they were listening to a gentle lullaby that only they could hear.

Harry tore his gaze from the flowers and went to sit on the garden wall. He fingered at the fraying hem on the sleeve of his jumper, one of the many he'd gotten from Molly Weasley for Christmas. This particular jumper was a dark green with a golden H on the front, his favourite except for the one with the dragon on it from his fourth year. His charcoal grey jeans were slightly too big for him and equally as frayed as the jumper, with holes at the knees and along his thighs, giving them a slightly rocky look. The jeans went slightly over the heels of his black converse, dampening the thuds as he randomly swung his legs back and forth and kicked the wall.

A pair of bushes next to him rustled and a faint ´Oomph´ could be heard from within. Harry smiled as Tonks tumbled out of them and raised an eyebrow at her currently green hair with soft brown highlights. She just beamed at him while brushing off some leaves from her long, purple leather coat (robes), it's front open showing off her muggle-ish punkclothes.

"Camouflage!" she said happily while standing up next to him, her hair resorting to the bubblegum pink she usually wore.

"I'm sorry?" Harry was puzzled for a moment.

"The hair! Great camouflage, isn't it?" She preened while jumping up to sit next to him, pulling a copy of the Daily Prophet from her robes.

"Not now it's not." Harry answered her, amused by her brazenness. The members of the Order guarding him had been expressly told to not be seen, stand out or make contact with anyone, not even with Harry himself. The only ones not adhering to those rules were Tonks and Snape.

Tonks did it he thought because she felt sorry for him, Snape because he refused to crawl inside a bush, preferring to stand under the shadows of a tree with his arms crossed, just glaring at the house he was presumably guarding. To be honest with himself, Harry trusted Snape more than most of the other guards he had. Even with his hostile behaviour, Snape had never done anything to put him in danger, unlike Mundungus Fletcher who frequently abandoned post to sell and buy things on the black market.

"Oh, pish-posh! Aren't you famous as the teenage delinquent in these parts? I'm just your rebellious girlfriend making a visit!" she smacked him with the paper. "Here's the paper, nothing fun happening in the world though I'm afraid."

"So you've heard of that." Harry groaned, embarrassed. It was widely known in the neighbourhood that he disappeared for the whole year only to get back for the summer. The Dursleys had spread the rumour of him going to St. Brutus School for Incurably Criminal Boys. Apparently this story had now reached magical ears as well.

"Of course I've heard about it! It's a standing joke in the order, Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived and the Chosen One, Saviour of the Light, an incurable criminal. Imagine that!" Tonks laughed while popping bubblegum as pink as her hair in her mouth and swinging her legs cheerily back and forward, out of synch with Harry's more sedate swinging.

Harry only shrugged and smiled weakly at her. He didn't really know how he felt about being a standing joke amongst order members, but he imagined even the smallest comic relief these days were welcome what with the Dark gaining more ground as time passed. He opened up the newspaper and scanned it for news while Tonks happily waved at some spooked neighbours walking their dogs. He had to give her credit; any other of his guards would stick out like a sore thumb. She did as well, but in such a way that only gave more believability to people's view of him, leaving both of them inconspicuous to the muggle and wizarding eye.

Harry's eyes caught the headline of a small, nearly hidden article in the middle of the paper, and he turned to Tonks. "What's this?" he asked her as she leaned in towards him to get a good look at the words he pointed at.

"Oh, that." She shrugged. "There have been some weird sightings of vampires and werewolves together according to the paper. It's a bit ridiculous according to me. Everyone knows those species can't get along and the only proof was that they were both in one same town at the same time. Coincidence I say!"

Not really knowing much about the subject and not sure why the article had caught his eye in the first place, Harry just shrugged, but decided to ask one thing he was wondering about it.

"What does Remus think of this?" He asked Tonks and thought about the man that was a link to his parents and Sirius, but also had been absent most of his life.

"No clue, he's been gone from headquarters a lot and not really social when he's there. Shame, he's such a cutie!" Tonks sighed in reply, and Harry looked at her sceptically. Remus, cute? Perhaps he couldn't see the appeal since the man had been friends with his father, and was also old enough to _be_his father.

The young Auror started and began digging through one of the many pockets of her dark purple leather coat.

"Speaking of Remus, I have some letters for you!" she exclaimed while throwing random trinkets into Harry's lap trying to find the elusive letters.

Harry picked up and stared bemusedly at the Bertie Bott's Flavoured Lip balm that had been thrown at him, trying to quench the sudden feeling of anticipation that rose inside him at the word letters. He couldn't really deny the feeling of isolation that came with living with the Dursleys with only their awkward, often one-sided conversations and the occasional visit from Tonks as company.

Tonks finally produced five letters from her seemingly bottomless pocket (which it probably was, courtesy of an extension charm, no doubt), of which one was very official-looking with a golden crest adorned with dragon-like creatures, keys and a balanced scale at the bottom. Tonk's eyes widened when she saw that particular letter.

"Blimey, Harry! You've gotten a letter from Gringotts! Wonder what they want?"

Harry held the letter with both hands, the golden ink teasing him by catching the last light of the slowly sinking sun, blinding him a little. The other letters lay abandoned in his lap as he turned the Gringotts letter around.

"Think you can check it for curses before I open it, Tonks? Just to be sure it's real?"

"Darling, I don't think anyone would be stupid enough to falsify a goblin letter, but you're right. Better safe than sorry!" She replied while covertly taking her wand out and performing some curse revealing spells on the letter.

"Constant vigilance, right?" Harry replied with a crooked smile which she answered with a big grin of her own.

"Touché, oh Chosen One. Well, it's clean. Go on and open it, I wanna know what it says!" she scooted closer to him Harry could smell her perfume wafting toward him. Any other guy would definitely start to become flustered, he thought wryly while ripping the envelope open and unfolding the parchment within. His eyes widened in disbelief at its contents, as did Tonks'.

_To Harry James Potter_

_Privet Drive nr 4_  
_Little Whinging, Surrey_

_Mr. Harry James Potter is hereby invited to the rereading of the will of James Charlus and Lily Marie Potter and the reading of the will of Sirius Arcturus Black. The reading will take place __at your earliest convenience__ and afterward Mr .Potter __will __have the choice of meeting with our Head Director and be introduced to his personal representative of his legal and economical interests. A further meeting with said representative can be arranged as well to this day if this is the wish of Mr. Potter._

_Mr. Potter is within his right to send someone to the reading on his behest, but it would be in Mr. Potter's best interests to come personally, as is agreed by this Goblin, the Head Director and Mr. Potter's personal representative._

_Sincerely Signed,_  
_Nagnok, First Secretary of the Head Director of Gringotts Bank_

"Well, that's a mouthful." Harry commented while calmly folding the letter and putting it in his jeans pocket.

"A mouthful? That's all you can say about it? It's the reading of your parents' and godfather's wills Harry!" Tonks exclaimed, a look of disbelief on her face at his seemingly indifferent behaviour.

Harry tried keeping said behaviour as he replied; "Well I already know I won't be allowed to attend, so why bother working myself up over it?"

"What? Of course you have to go Harry!" confused at his bitter tone, Tonks prodded at his arm with her wand. "You should have been invited to this years ago; I can't imagine why they're only contacting you now."

"Probably because I'll be 17 soon and of legal age?" Harry shrugged. "Dumbledore's not going to allow me to go, so why even be thinking about it?"

Tonks jumped off the wall, with an indignant scowl, her hair flashing to a dark red. "Well, I won't stand for that! Come on, chop chop!" She clapped her hands in front of his face, chasing him down from the wall to stand next to her on the pavement.

Harry stared at her, confused. "Chop chop?" he echoed.

Tonks answered him by hugging him tightly, "If Dumbledore won't allow you to hear the last words of people who loved you, then I'll take you there myself. You deserve to know what they wanted for you in life!" she said fiercely. He hesitantly hugged her back, touched by her words. Here was someone interested in not only his safety, but also what he wanted.

"Thanks Tonks." He managed to get out between being hugged too tightly and the emotions that he really didn't feel like dealing with right now. She just smiled at him, and without further ado, dragged him down into the bush she had previously occupied. Harry fell on the ground next to her with a yelp, with Tonks landing partly draped over him laughing.

"What are you doing?" he hissed her, embarrassed by their position and Tonk's seemingly ease at the situation. She grinned at him and took a hold of his shoulder.

"We're apparating to Diagon Alley, hold on!" she answered cheerily.

Before he could even start protesting he felt the familiar feeling of being sucked into a black hole that came with apparating.

´If I vomit I'll aim for her shoes´ was his last mutinous thought before disappearing from Privet Drive, leaving only a neighbour staring at the before giggling bush in dismay.

* * *

Moments later, the still cheery Tonks and a slightly green Harry were spit out of a large archway of wood, adorned with stars and two large griffins standing guard beside. As he landed Harry fell on all four, and he gulped in air like a dying man, trying to get the shock of the sudden travel out of his system.

"Couldn't you have given me a bit more warning before doing that?" he snarled at her, while standing up, using one of the griffin heads for support.

"So-orry Mr. Stingy, your animagus a bee by any chance?" Tonks replied with a slight toss of the head. "You wanna go to Gringotts or not? I can take you back home if you'd rather sit on the wall and be boring some more."

"No, I'm sorry Tonks, I just... Hate travelling without any warning..." He gave her a sheepish smile and blinked up at her innocently. "Forgive me?"

Her answer was to take his head under one of her arms and roughly messing his hair with her hand. "Apology accepted!" she replied over his protests over the treatment. She let him go with a pat on the back and met his slight glare with a big grin.

Instead of responding to her teasing, Harry turned around to get a look at the archway they'd just come out from. It was one of perhaps seven in a row of identical archways, all wooden with stars carved into them and each had some sort of wooden animal statue on each side. He could recognize the griffins and something that looked like sphinx further down. Turning around he noticed they were standing next to the Leaky Cauldron.

"This is a new acquisition." He said with a raised eyebrow at Tonks, who just shrugged.

"They were put up sometime during your last term, precaution against attacks on the Alleys. You can't just apparate inside Diagon Alley anymore. You have to go through the Leaky Cauldron or get a zone pass from the Ministry. I have one since I'm an Auror." She explained while pointing at a small silver badge on her robe sleeve.

"So all corrupted ministry workers have one and the rest can just waltz through the cauldron?" Harry shook his head, "Good plan, I'm impressed!"

"Hey, at least they're doing something, right? That should count for something." Tonks bit her lower lip, glancing between the archways and the boy beside her, looking a bit unsure.

"I know, I'm just messing with you Tonks." He replied, not wanting to make her feel bad. It was after all her workplace, even if said workplace was slightly corrupted by insane evildoers at the moment. Her face brightened yet again and he was promptly dragged away by the arm toward the giant white and golden building that was Gringotts Bank.

* * *

**End of Chapter**

_This will probably be edited and update sometime in the future, because I'm a perfectionist. So feel free to come back and reread it later. Hope you like it and please TELL me if you like, you know where the review-button is. ^^_


End file.
